Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Newark Confidential - Turnaround Children Inc. Transparency Grade: F

[Cami] Anderson refuses to respond to open requests for
information, and Turnaround officials are equally evasive... Attempts to contact New Jersey Education
Commissioner Chris Cerfhave been met
with similar silence..... Ted Cohen

The top school official in a major American city as part of
an education-reform initiative is bringing in yet another private foundation,
yet as little is known about Turnaround for Children Inc. as is known about how
it fits into Supt. Cami Anderson’s plan to modernize Newark, New Jersey’s
schools.

Anderson refuses to respond to open requests for
information, and Turnaround officials are equally evasive.Attempts to contact New Jersey Education
Commissioner Chris Cerfhave been met
with similar silence.
Anderson arrived in New Jersey’s largest school district- two years ago this month She brought with
her an education-reform movement. The city's public schools are among the
lowest-performing in the state, even after the state government took over their
management in 1995.

Although the school district continues to struggle with low
high school-graduation rates and low standardized-test scores, the mayor of
Newark, Cory Booker,
insists, "Newark, New Jersey can become one of the first American cities
to solve the crisis in public education."This vision for
better school district is also shared by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who
made a $100 million donation to Newark Public Schools in 2010.

HuffPost’s Joy Resmovits called Newark“a national test case for the fixing of
troubled urban schools and the use of major philanthropic dollars in an
educational system.”

Now, Turnaround For Children is interviewing schools in
Newark for September. What is Turnaround and what is its proposed role in
Newark? The best source for information would be Turnaround, right?
Wrong.
Turnaround has refused to provide information about its failed foray into Orange
schools and whether that experience foretells problems in Newark.

Turnaround’s entry into the reform movement began with
Orange, N.J., as well as New York City and Washington, D.C. But as soon as the
Orange effort began, it failed, according to Turnaround’s nonprofit filing with
the Internal Revenue Service.Tax documents filed with the IRS by Turnaround disclose the
program's unexpected suspension. The documents, a public record, also reveal
that Turnaround was forced to return the remaining part of the grant that
funded the program.

"Management decided to terminate its three-school program earlier than
planned," Turnaround officials told the IRS. In their IRS filing, Turnaround
officials blamed the short-lived program's demise on what they vaguely
described as a "shift in organizational priorities."
But officials failed to disclose what they meant by the change or who
instigated it.
Turnaround officials say they suspended their request for the remaining funding
they were to receive for the Orange project, but they made no mention of the
amount of funding they had already received and the amount they were still due.

Turnaround officials issued a prepared statement defending
their Orange pullout. “Our hope was to expand the partnership, to deliver a
significant amount of professional development to teachers and to increase our
engagement district-wide,” said Kate Felsen, vice president of communications.
“Unfortunately, Orange Public Schools did not have the capacity to take on the
professional development we had to offer during the 2011-12 year. For this
reason, we ended our partnership amicably."

Though Turnaround proudly announced the Orange project in
its September 2010 newsletter, there is no evidence on the organization's web
site that Turnaround officials ever notified the public of the program's
suspension.

If Orange school officials are to blame for Turnaround’s
failure in their schools, then they are apparently taking the accusations in
stride. Orange Supt. Ronald Lee refused to respond to questions. He submitted a
statement finally after receiving a formal open-records request.

He said, “Turnaround proposed to expand its program to a
transformational model that encompassed academic, foundational and behavioral
elements in the 2011-2012 school year. At the same time, the district was
continuing or launching a number of significant initiatives to improve
instruction and student outcomes. We mutually concluded that the district’s
initiatives would require and deserved the full focus of the district staff,
principals and teachers. Therefore, we discontinued the program in Orange at
that time to allow these innovations to take hold.”

Felsen, too, will not go beyond her prepared statement. When
asked who funded the Orange effort and who will be funding the Newark plan,
Felsen replied, “You have my statement.”
More to the point, attempts by journalists to procure information from this
so-called “transparent” group – as
described by GuideStar.org – have been met with silence, stalling and arrogance.

Ted Cohen of Maine is
a veteran newspaper and radio reporter who follows trending national issues. He
can be reached at tedcohen@hotmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Tedcohen1.

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Outsource our children

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